Best Filament Themes and Starter Kits

You can make a Filament panel look like your brand in ten minutes with colours, a font and a logo. We cover that in Theming Filament: custom colors, fonts and dark mode. Sometimes you want more: a different design language, or a project that starts with auth, tooling and panels already set up. This guide rounds up the themes and starter kits worth using with Filament v5 in 2026, with prices and trade-offs.

Also Read: Filament v3 to v5 Upgrade: Skip v4 Without Breaking Your Panel

Part 1: Themes

How Filament themes work in v4/v5

Since Filament v4, themes are Tailwind CSS v4 stylesheets layered on Filament’s base CSS. Most theme packages ask you to:

1. create a custom theme (php artisan make:filament-theme),
2. @import the theme’s CSS in your theme.css,
3. register a plugin on the panel, and
4. rebuild with npm run build.

Because they work through Filament’s CSS layers and hook classes rather than overriding views, good themes survive Filament updates.

Official themes (Filament team)

Filament launched an official themes marketplace. These are the safest premium choice, because they’re built and maintained by the same team that ships Filament:

All support Filament v4 and v5 and include a year of updates. Compact is worth singling out: it’s the cheapest usability upgrade for operations teams who live in tables all day.

Also Read: Laravel: Filament v5 vs

Community themes

Installing Nord on Filament 5 looks like this:

composer require andreia/filament-nord-theme:"^3.0"

use Andreia\FilamentNordTheme\FilamentNordThemePlugin;

$panel->plugin(FilamentNordThemePlugin::make());

/* resources/css/filament/admin/theme.css */
@import '../../../../vendor/filament/filament/resources/css/theme.css';
@import '../../../../vendor/andreia/filament-nord-theme/resources/css/theme.css';

php artisan filament:assets
npm run build

Themes to avoid in 2026

The Filament directory now shows an automated package health score. Several older theme packages are v3-only or marked abandoned on Packagist, including some “theme manager” and flat-design packages. They won’t install on v5, or they’ll break on the next update. If a theme doesn’t list “Supports v5.x”, skip it.

Theme or DIY?

Part 2: Starter kits

A starter kit gets you from composer create-project to a working panel with auth, tooling and conventions in minutes. Here are the options that target Laravel 13 + Filament 5.

Larament (free)

Larament by CodeWithDennis describes itself as “a bloat-free starter kit for Laravel 13.x with FilamentPHP 5.x pre-configured”. What you get:

• Quality tooling: Larastan, Pint, Rector, Pest 4 (including browser tests), Debugbar, and a composer review command that runs them all.
• Stricter Laravel defaults via nunomaduro/essentials: strict models, automatic eager loading, immutable dates.
• A configured panel: SPA mode, profile management, app-based MFA, a custom theme, and tables with striped rows and deferred loading by default.
• CI: GitHub Actions for tests and code quality.

composer create-project codewithdennis/larament my-app
cd my-app
php artisan boost:install

Check the PHP requirement before choosing it. Recent Larament releases on Packagist require a very recent PHP (8.5 at the time of writing).

Also Read: Livewire 4 Islands in PHP Filament: Where They Actually Help

Best for: new projects that want strong defaults and code-quality tooling without extra features to remove.

FilaKit (free)

FilaKit by Jefferson Gonçalves is a family of starter kits on Laravel 13 and Filament 5:

• FilaKit (multi-panel): three pre-configured panels (for example admin, app and guest), with a multi-auth guard setup for different user types, colours per panel, and central config in config/filakit.php.
• Base kit (filakitphp/basev5): a simpler single-structure starting point.
• TeamKit: multi-tenancy with team management, a head start on Filament tenancy.
• ServiceDesk: a helpdesk-style starter.

A small CLI (filakit) scaffolds a new project from any kit. FilaKit also ships Laravel Sail configuration, so Docker-based teams can start straight away.

Best for: projects that know they need several panels or user types, or teams, from day one.

Also Read: Filament on Laravel 13: PHP The Complete Compatibility Checklist

Laravel’s official starter kits + Filament

Laravel’s own starter kits (React, Vue, or Livewire with Flux) handle the customer-facing app. Add Filament for the back office:

laravel new my-app   # choose the Livewire starter kit
composer require filament/filament:"^5.0" -W
php artisan filament:install --panels

This is the hybrid setup we recommend in Filament vs building your own admin panel: a custom UI for customers and Filament for staff.

What to look for in any starter kit

1. Versions: Laravel 13, Filament 5, Livewire 4, Tailwind 4, PHP 8.3+.
2. Recent activity: commits in the last month, and Dependabot or Renovate configured.
3. Tests included, so you can see how the author expects the panel to be tested.
4. No lock-in: plain Laravel structure you can grow out of.
5. AI-ready: support for php artisan boost:install, so your agents get Filament’s skill and docs search. See rules for AI agents on a Filament codebase.

Recommended combinations

FAQ

Are there official Filament themes?

Yes. Filament sells official themes (Soft, Sharp and Noir at $39 each, and Compact at $29) that support Filament v4 and v5, each with a year of updates.

What is the best free Filament theme?

Nord by Andréia Bohner is the most popular free, MIT-licensed theme and has a v5-compatible release (3.x). The free UI Switcher plugin is a good alternative if you want users to personalise the panel themselves.

Also Read: Build a Multi-Tenant SaaS Panel with Filament v5 (Step by Step)

What is the best Filament starter kit?

For a lean, well-tooled base, use Larament (Laravel 13 + Filament 5). For multi-panel or multi-tenant projects, the FilaKit family (including TeamKit) gets you further on day one.

Do Filament v3 themes work on v5?

No. Filament v4 moved themes to Tailwind CSS v4 and changed the CSS architecture. Use a v4/v5-compatible release of the theme, or migrate your custom theme with @source rules.

Sources and further reading

• Filament official themes
• Nord theme on GitHub
• UI Switcher plugin
• Larament on GitHub
• FilaKit v5 plugin page

Related on The Web Tier: Best Filament plugins